Sir James Dyson: Next generation will suffer if workers do not return to offices

Sir James Dyson has called on the government to take the “less popular decision” and send workers back to the office.

The order to work from home wherever possible was lifted on 19 July, but since then numbers returning to offices has stagnated.

Dyson believes the “chances of the next generation will suffer” if a return to the office is not mandated.

He believes that the “competitiveness” of the nation’s firms depends on it.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Dyson says that allowing for the kind of flexible working system that Labour are calling for risks creating a “two-tier” workforce.

He wrote: “Glib statements from ministers about home-working being ‘here to stay’ show a lack of understanding of the detrimental impact that it is having. Where is their output-based evidence?

“We risk creating a two-tier workforce with those at home becoming less and less effective, leaving those diligently attending the workplace to drive the business forward.”

Dyson’s comments come a few weeks after some ministers demanded civil servants return to the office by the autumn. It was rumoured that only a quarter of the desks in the Department for Education are being filled.

The inventor went on to identify his own firm’s making of ventilators at the start of the pandemic, with a team of 400 working together.

“Projects like this could never work with people cocooned at home,” Dyson said.

“The Government must now harness any ‘vaccine dividend’ and support Britain’s firms as they seek to recover their global competitiveness,” he added.

“Returning to the workplace is the essential starting point.”